Have you ever thought about how a football fan who is blind reads the latest news about their favourite team? Or how someone who is paralysed from the neck down does their weekly grocery shopping online? Or how someone who is deaf is in hysterics watching a stand-up comedy video?
That’s right! People who have a disability can access the web just like someone who is fully able – but only if websites and mobile apps have been designed and developed keeping different capabilities in mind. This is where accessibility comes into play.
Accessibility? What’s that?
Digital accessibility means that people with disabilities can use the web. More specifically, digital accessibility means that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the Web, and that they can contribute to the web. Digital accessibility also benefits others, including older people with changing abilities due to aging.
When we talk about digital accessibility, we are really talking about digital accessibility as the same principles apply across mobile applications and other digital products.
In layman’s term, digital accessibility is ensuring your website and mobile apps can be accessed by everyone regardless of barriers, providing content is reachable in every possible direction, it’s making sure you haven’t excluded people with visual, hearing, motor or cognitive impairments from your content.
Not only does this help to improve the usability for all users, but not offering an accessible service means you could be breaching compliance.
Let’s dive right into the statistics, just looking at permanent disabilities:
- An estimated 1.3 billion people – or 16% of the global population – experience a significant disability today
- There are an estimated 300 million people in the world with colour vision deficiency.
- Between 9% and 12% of the worlds population are dyslexic
- Over 2.2 billion million people across the globe live with blindness and vision impairment
- 1.5 billion people across the globe have a hearing loss
Creating an accessible digital experience for everyone
It doesn’t stop there. Accessibility isn’t just about people with disabilities. It’s about everyone. There are circumstances that you can find yourself in – situational or temporary – which can affect how you access the web or mobile apps.